What is Podium Class

Educators need to offer students a curriculum that reflects their funds of knowledge (mirrors), exposes them to the cultures and experiences of others (windows), and develops in them an understanding and empathy for those who are different from them (sliding glass doors). In this chapter, the authors describe a six-week-long scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project, which included 63 pre-service teachers (PST) in the US and 36 in-service teachers (IST) in Israel. The authors describe how they used Flip and Facebook to provide PST and IST who are racially, linguistically, and culturally different with an opportunity to engage in asynchronous dialogue. Analysis of survey and extant data confirmed that these transnational learning experiences provided participants with “windows” and “mirrors” for digital, global, and cultural literacy. Readers can use the authors' description of the two asynchronous assignments, the results of the SoTL study, and lessons learned to guide, design, and implement similar transnational learning experiences.